by Henry Green
She decided this was one of those occasions when you could not interfere.
‘But when eventually I did get a bucketful, I’d heard some incendiaries fall pretty close, and once I got off the ship I found they’d dropped on a line right across what timber was left, over the yard we’d come through to get at the blaze. Right across our line of retreat. Anyway, everyone had come back to fight this new lot, and I saw Shiner in action for the first time. He was absolutely terrific. You know what a huge man he was. Well, he stood up top of a pile of timber throwing planks off to get down to the seat of the fire, where an incendiary had fallen in a sort of deep pocket. The light from it was that flashlight white, the wood round him brilliant yellow, he had lost his tin hat, his hair was down over his black face, and he was doing more than I’d thought one man could.’
(He had said, ‘Hi, cock. Boy, am I enjoying this.’ And Richard particularly remembered him some twenty minutes later. The fire, red now, had taken a good hold. The picture was of Shiner right up in it, mouth wide open, snarling, drooling at the flames. The man had been much too close, but that was like him. Richard remembered he tried to explain why he had been under cover on the ship, and not up at the fire. All Shiner caught of what Richard shouted were the two words, ‘drinking water,’ at which he had called back, ‘Let’s have some, cocker.’)
At this moment Christopher came up.
‘I say, dad, what shall we do?’ he said.
‘Don’t call me dad, call me daddy.’
‘Now run along for a bit, darling, daddy and me are talking. There’s a good boy. Isn’t it terrible,’ she said to Richard, ‘he calls me mum.’
Christopher said ‘Oh lord,’ and wandered off. In a moment he was happily laying about him, on his own again.
‘That awful local school,’ his father said. ‘It’s a good thing you’re both down here,’ he went on, ‘conditions are impossible for you in London now.’
‘I don’t know why,’ she answered, ‘there are lots of women up there, helping.’
‘Oh I know, but they’re in the way. And if anything happened to him we should never forgive ourselves.’
Suddenly, in spite of herself, she spoke about herself.
‘I feel so useless down here,’ she said.
‘Darling,’ he said, pressing her arm. A rather affected look of great tiredness came over his face.
‘No, I don’t really,’ she lied, when she saw. ‘It’s quite right, I must be with the old boy. Now, go on, you were just at the most exciting bit.’ She encouraged him although she could not have told the point he had reached.
‘Well, we could not get water, it was hopeless from the first. You see the blast from the bomb which probably killed Piper, I expect it fell while I was in the ship, because I never heard it, that blast had brought all the remaining skylights down, and the broken glass cut the hose. Each time they turned the pumps on there were just huge spurts of water way back at gashes in the hose, we never got anything at the branch. You should have heard Shiner curse the pump operator, who couldn’t catch a syllable, he was too far away even when his pump was not operating. You don’t know the noise our pumps make. And that was happening all over, burst lengths I mean. We had to give up. The fire had taken charge. In the end someone came back with a message to say the sub officer was killed, and that we were all to get out as best we could. Because the flames had got across the road, the only one we could escape by.
‘Then I did a thing even Piper would not have done. You know the old man hadn’t joined the sub officer in that shelter because he was windy. Being as he was, he just couldn’t resist it. I never knew the sub from Adam. I’m sure he didn’t want the old fool. It was simply that he couldn’t have been able to get rid of Piper. Well, when word came for us to clear out, back to the Gate, because our escape was cut off, I was too quick. You see it was no good trying to roll up the hose, which was hopelessly cut about, and ruined. And the pump that had been trying to supply us with water wasn’t ours, it was the other crew’s job to get it away. But when I did come across Shiner again, at the Dock Gate, I asked him where he had been. And d’you know he’d helped them manhandle that pump right through the flames, though they couldn’t possibly have managed it by the road we took when eventually I got a lift out.’
‘Darling, what are you blaming yourself for?’
‘I was too fast in getting away, that’s all.’
‘You don’t mean to say you really think you ran away?’ As she asked this she put her left arm up over his shoulder. She smiled at him with genuine amusement. ‘Not you,’ she said.
He laughed. But she was beginning to irritate him again. ‘Well it was awkward. You see it was the second time I’d got separated. But things came out all right afterwards, as you’ll see. Anyway Shiner was careful not to lay the blame. It was a nasty moment. I simply went off on my lonesome, trying not to run, to see if I could get hold of our own pump, to get it away. By that time nearly everything left was alight. And great high piles of timber, too. Everyone was clearing out. The smoke came in gusts. I couldn’t find the crew. The pump wasn’t where we’d left her. I began to run to one abandoned taxi after another. Everything looked deep red and it was getting frightfully hot. There wasn’t a sign of my crew, or Shiner. No one answered a question, not that there were many left to ask. So I gave up, and jumped on the step of a taxi that was moving off. Then I saw what we had to drive through. Darling, it really was a bit much. The road had those high open sheds on each side, stacked with timber, well alight. The wind was blowing the most enormous swirling flames scything right across the road, which kept on being blotted out by smoke. Each flame would shut off suddenly, disappear, then sweep out red again, quite forty foot long, the bigger ones, sweeping across parallel with the ground, and fiercer than you can imagine. Well, the driver of this old cab didn’t seem able to get more than nine miles an hour out of her. And he chucked up the sponge. I’ll agree we were still moving, but he opened the little window into the back and said:
‘“Jack, I can’t do it.”
‘At that a small man put his face right through and cursed him completely until he did drive on. It wasn’t too bad in the end. Just very hot and a good many flying cinders. It didn’t last more than a minute.’
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘Then rather an amusing thing happened. As soon as we were out of danger I got off. I was till trying to find my pump and taxi. It seemed pitch dark out of the flames. I fell in getting off that step though we can’t have been travelling more than five miles an hour. That made me realise how tired I was. There were a few random piles of timber, but nothing alight, and I could see a pink gasholder at the bottom. There was nothing up above. I had my back to the blaze. We must have been the last to get out because I was absolutely alone. Nothing had passed me.’
She wondered, did he think of me? But she had the sense not to ask.
‘And it was then that I came on a little man behind a low wall of timber, holding a branch, yards out of range of the blaze behind. I asked what he was doing. He said he was waiting for water. I just managed to see he had got a small fire he could have put out with a bucket. So I said I’d follow the hose back to his pump, and give them the order to turn on. I hadn’t gone more than two lengths when it ended. They had simply driven the pump off, abandoned him. He was connected to thin air. I went back. I didn’t enjoy going even that short way back towards the blaze. So I told him and we walked away together.’
‘Excuse me a minute, darling,’ she said. ‘Christopher,’ she shouted, ‘come here. Do be careful. You’ll only be getting wet through. That last lot of snow went all over you.’
The boy paid no attention.
‘Christopher,’ she went on, ‘you heard what I said.’ She took her arm away from Richard, detached herself. ‘Come here when I tell you, I mean it.’ Then when he did trail along back to them, ‘Why look,’ she said, before he was close enough to see, ‘You’re absolutely soaked. Oh isn’t it vexing.’<
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‘I’m not. Really I’m not, mum.’
‘Let me feel. Well, you’re not too bad,’ she agreed, but thought that, in the nanny’s day, he would have had to change everything, right down to his skin. It was difficult to know how particular one ought to be.
‘Look,’ his father interrupted, ‘haven’t you knocked those branches about enough? There’s hardly a bird left in the garden since you’ve been out. You’d do better to put food for them. They starve in this weather you know.’
‘They’re Polish people,’ Christopher said, ‘and I’m a German policeman, rootling them about.’
‘Well, if that’s so, hadn’t you better carry on the good work where it’s drier? Why not go back to the stables and see if you can’t kill some more mice with a spoon? You could think they were Czechs,’ his father said.
‘Oh thanks, I say. That’s a lovely idea,’ and he ran off, stumbling in the snow, diminutive.
Dy looked at her husband. She laughed. ‘I give you best,’ she said, adding, ‘but he wasn’t too wet, was he?’
‘No, you’d wrapped him up well. Every child in the world is war mad now. I suppose I am. Except that I’m not keen on the war. But I seem to talk of nothing else.’
‘That’s just what I want,’ she said, reaching up and kissing him. He took hold of her, kissed her very hard.
‘It’s so marvellous to have you again.’ As he said this his eyes filled with tears. The moment she saw these she drew away. ‘Go on with what you were telling me,’ she said, firmly. She knew she could make him feel right any time. The garden was not the proper place. She made up her mind that if he seemed to be getting upset she would take him off to bed at once.
‘You’re sure you aren’t bored?’
‘Of course not, it’s wonderful,’ she lied.
‘Well I limped along this road, because I had hurt my foot somehow, I don’t know when. We came round a wall. There was a whole collection of pumps drawn up. Almost at once I found the crew, except Piper of course. They were frightfully pleased to see me. Shiner thought I mightn’t have been able to get out. He said he’d stayed back and looked everywhere, as well as help get that pump away. I expect he had, but I left long after he did, I’m sure now. Then we noticed Piper was missing. I thought we’d better go back to look. “Naw,” Shiner said, “ ’e’ll only be crawlin’ after the LFB,” meaning the Regulars. I stuck out, arguing that we couldn’t abandon the old man. The others said we should be better off without him. Then another wave of bombers came over. Someone up in front shouted, “Everyone to abandon the Dock.” We were in a nasty spot if a bomb had fallen, jammed in a mass by the Dock Gate. So all the taxis and tenders began to move off. That rather settled the question. We got in and went. But not far. I wouldn’t have that. Not on account of old Piper, mind. Bugger him. Merely because I didn’t think we’d been given a proper order.’
‘Why, darling? You couldn’t expect to see the officer in the dark, surely?’
‘It wasn’t dark remember, but a sort of half daylight, at that distance from the fire just like the last light of day in streets. No, as we drove away it didn’t seem right to me, somehow.’
‘You don’t mean a fifth columnist gave a bogus order?’
‘Oh no, only that it looked as though we were running from a fire that had got the better of us. I thought the chaps up in front wanted to get away, that one of them had just sung out, and the rest had followed like sheep. So I told old Knocker to draw up for a minute. There was a certain amount of stuff coming down just then. Shiner got almost agitated. He wanted to know what we had stopped for. But I wasn’t going to tell him. And I wouldn’t tell because I was afraid he’d override me. Thank God the old Pied one wasn’t with us. If he had been I think we should have gone back just to get rid of him at the station. Well, I stopped first one and then another pump driving away in the direction we had been going. They didn’t know who’d given that order, they said, and drove on. It looked fishy to me.’
‘You mean it was a sort of panic?’
‘Yes, more or less. Then Shiner got down. He began to get angry. This street was dead empty again. ‘What are we waiting for, cocker?’ he asked. He looked enormous, I remember. So I said I wasn’t sure about that order. He said to let us get back to the old substation and be reorganised. It came out he thought the Dock hopeless because there weren’t any officers, or any orders. He said we couldn’t do any good on our own. I pointed out it seemed like running away, that we’d been driven off for the moment, but when things got quieter we ought to go back. I asked Knocker White, the driver, what he thought. He wasn’t having any. He merely said I was the number one, it was my responsibility. So I said, “Well we’re staying.” Shiner said “OK, mate. If you say so that’s all right by me.” A bomb began to come down, close. We flopped.
‘You know,’ he went on, ‘it was a bit of a moment. We’d had months waiting at the station, quarrelling over Pye, and about whether one man had done more nightguards the week before than another, and whether poor Pye had his uses, or if his running after girls made life harder for us. Also all the Piper trouble. Thinking it over I’m sure the bother with the Pied one was that he stank. He was abominably dirty. There were some who made up to the Regulars almost as much. For the matter of that, I did. The only difference was they did not choose such high officers. No, there it is. After twelve months there we suddenly were men again, or for the first time. In deciding to stay we proved it. I shall always be glad we did, although Shiner was killed. He was so good he would have been killed anyway.’
‘When was he?’
‘Later that night, or rather in the morning. He went off on the prowl to get a drink and almost the last stick of bombs that came down must have killed him, blown him into the water when we were back at the Dock, for we never found a trace. We did make a search for him.’
‘Was he married?’
‘No, he was on his own. Before that he saved my life. Where I’d got down between what I thought was a street sand box and a wall, you know one of those things they spread gravel from when it’s wet, just after we’d decided not to go back to the substation, he stopped me, “Don’t lie up against that, cock,” he said, “it’s a distributor box.”’
‘What’s that?’
‘The Electricity Department. Something like ten thousand volts passes through it. I moved out double quick. We found a park behind the wall, with a trench shelter. We went to ground there for a bit.’
‘How did he save your life, darling?’
‘I’m coming to that in a minute. It was incredible in that shelter, absolutely pitch black. A woman was moaning for water in a foreign accent and as we went down the ramp we found it was packed, there were so many people you could not sit down. We hadn’t been standing, huddled, for more than three minutes when a drunk came up outside. I could see him against the open doorway. He was raving that he was going to shew a light to the Germans up above. He repeated this when a voice asked what he’d said, and three huge men pushed past me, tearing up the ramp. I thought they were going to kill him. And d’you know what? Shiner and Knocker both followed them up. Although we were in the first real bit of shelter we’d had that night. Anything to be in a row. It was just the same at the substation whenever someone started baiting Piper. He was no more than a silly worn-out old man, yet great hulking fellows like Shiner would get up to encourage him to fight. Someone, whoever it was, would be taunting the old hermit with how often he had been on the Labour Exchange, the Lido, and then Shiner would begin calling him by his Christian name, saying, “Go on, Arthur, ’ave a go.”’
‘So what happened?’ she asked. He was beginning to get hoarse, had stopped to eat some ice.
‘Nothing. A bomb came down close, with the noise of an express train going through a station, and blew up that distributor box I’d been lying beside. There was a most appalling flash.’
‘And that man? Had he shone a light?’
‘Oh no. He was drunk. I don’t know
what happened to him. We were all knocked off our feet. In the confusion he got away.’
She was really concerned. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘it must have been too dreadful.’ Her eyes filled with tears. He did not notice. He was beginning to tail off, as though the impulse which had driven him to tell, like a clockwork spring, was beginning to run down. He felt very tired.
They walked along in silence. ‘Too dreadful,’ she murmured, then she asked:
‘D’you love me?’
‘You know I do.’ He seemed to her a long way away.
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘Only the last extraordinary thing in that fantastic night.’ He spoke as though it was too remote to have any interest.
‘Tell me.’
‘Well I don’t know. But cutting a long story short, we stayed in that shelter until we’d had a breather. Then I thought we might get back to the Dock. There was a bit of an argument so I said I’d walk back to the Gate and see if I could get some definite orders. Knocker and Shiner tossed up to see who should come with me. Shiner lost. He followed about twenty paces behind, so that one of us could pick the other up if anything happened. I think he still thought we ought to go back to the substation. But it was all much quieter up above.
‘When at last I did get back to the Dock Gate there was not a pump to be seen, only about a dozen Auxiliaries leaning against a wall. The blaze was in full view now, much closer. It was terrific. The Auxiliaries never moved or said a word. They looked as though they’d had all the stuffing knocked out.
